Bringing Data Science Back to Statistics

One of the sessions that I attended at the 2015 Moore-Sloan Data Science Environment Summit was titled “Isn’t Statistics Part of Data Science?” It is a niggling question I often consider, especially given how few statisticians there are at BIDS. A group of about forty people from statistics, computer science, and applied domains convened to discuss differences in practice and culture that divide statistics from data science. I am an applied statistician and a fellow at BIDS straddling these two worlds. I find it difficult to identify the line dividing these roles. Although its role isn’t well defiDrew Conway’s famous data science Venn diagram points out, if you try to do data science without mathematical and statistical knowledge, you’re in the “danger zone.” However, the reverse is also true: succesned, it seems…